Greg Kosmicki - Nunca conseguimos alguma coisa

Este caderno é tão velho que o papel amareleceu.

Pergunto-me onde terá crescido a árvore.

Parece que nunca conseguimos alguma coisa sem perder outra.

Há uma espécie de lei que regula isto

e que tem que ver com a finitude dos recursos.

Algures alguém calculou exactamente quanto

custou a minha vida à terra,

quantas pessoas tiveram de morrer para que eu possa existir.

A começar pelos meus pais, e os seus, e todos os que morreram

por causa deles. É como se nos desfizéssemos em sangue.

Quem poderá então acordar amanhã de manhã

e cumprir as suas obrigações, anteriormente preparadas,

como se isso fosse o seu trabalho e apenas o seu trabalho?

Quem terá a coragem de se virar de novo para leste

e olhar o sol que é dos outros?

      "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" has been attributed to a half dozen different writers. It can be helpful in encouraging people to write, but also in describing poetry that arises out of meditation. Greg Kosmicki is a Nebraska poet whose work is deeply thoughtful but also cordial and conversational. Here's an example from his new book It's as Good Here as it Gets Anywhere, from Logan House Press.

  You Never Get One Thing

This notebook is so old the paper is yellow.

I wonder where the tree grew.

Seems like you never get one thing without losing another.

There's some sort of law about that

to do with finite resources.

Somewhere some guys have figured out to the exact ounce

how much my life has cost the earth,

how many people have died that I might live.

Start with my parents, and theirs, and all who died

because of them. It's like we drip in blood.

Who can wake up then tomorrow morning,

do the tasks set out before them

as if it was their work and their work only?

Who has the courage to look out to the east again

at someone else's sun?

in, American Life in Poetry